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Co-operative Bank to become totally un-co-operative by 2015

The Co-operative Bank has made a public admission of past mistakes and has pledged to follow other financial institutions by being as un-co-operative as possible in the future.

‘By the end of this week expect counter staff to mutter fractiously under their breaths, give wrong information and refuse to give small change, with much longer waits for telephone banking by the end of the year,’ said Laker Smythe, the Co-op’s new Chief Executive. He also announced that a growing number of call centre operators will start adopting outrageous fake Indian accents next month, though all the bank’s call centres are currently in the UK. For those waiting to talk to a customer service person, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons will be played by Rochdale Middle School Orchestra, labelled by Ofsted as ‘failing’. In Spring 2014 a recorded voice will tell waiting customers ‘Your call is of waning importance to us.’

‘If we went from here to total unhelpfulness too quickly, there would be a loss of confidence,’ said Smythe. ’The City is keen to hear how quickly the bank will shed its cumbersome image of helpful customer-friendliness. Reforms, aimed at 90% obstreperousness by this time next year, will be introduced slowly in all the Co-op’s operational areas.

‘Expect longer and longer queues in our supermarkets,’ said Mr Smythe. ‘In the new year we’ll introduce a new feature called ‘Unidentified bastard in the bagging area’ which automatically calls a security guard and triggers a random strip search of 5% of those waiting for self-service checkouts. Customers will be expected to pay for any lubricant used.

‘We’re also piloting a gradually worsening unhelpful funeral service, with professionals unable to keep a straight face and increasingly shallow graves. Crematorium temperatures will decrease in line with increasing energy prices. Our ultimate aim is to bring together the banking and funeral operations, with instant live burial and asset seizure for bank customers with unsustainable overdrafts.’